Chiefs Thursday Practice Report
This practice report is brought to you by AA camp correspondent Ryan James. -PA
When you get your picture taken with Hall of Famer Emmitt Thomas, you know that it is going to be a good day! St. Joseph brought much better weather for the Chiefs today. It was overcast and just barely reaching 90 as opposed to the 115 degrees they had on Monday. The practice field at MWSU was finally full of Chief players. Le’Ron McClain introduced himself to the fans when he came down by jumping and holding up a fist. Every player coming down was greeted by energetic fans screaming their names. One particular fan, who is nicknamed Susie Bling Bling, usually leads this welcome. Most of the Chiefs know her by name and love her because she brings them cookies and baked goods…shhhhh dont tell Coach Haley.
During the indy drills, I started with the linebackers. I was particularly interested in seeing what new FA LB Siler brought to the table. He has the possibility to challenge Jevon Belcher for the ILB position next to DJ. Siler is definitely built for the role! He is built like a brick house and during some of the video you will see that he has better fundamentals than Belcher and he wraps up especially well. Belcher had a bad day of stepping on the bags and was in Coach Crennel’s dog house quick. Derek Johnson is looking great at camp this year as well. He did have a pick 6 against Cassel that was reminiscent to his pick he had last year during the season. During all the positional specific drills, the first time vets were doing conditioning, so we did not get to see Hali, Gregg, Breaston and crew do any one on one drills.
The trenches is where the game is won and lost and there was a battle in them today in the 3-on1 drills. These are high paced and lots of contact. I have some great video of Allen Bailey in this drill. Please watch the video just to see his raw power! This is going to be a diamond in the rough!
During the WR/DB drills they got to go against each for the first time that I have seen this year. Bowe and Flowers were matched up against each other and Bowe definitely got the best of him. There is video on this as well. Quinten Lawrence looks to be coming into his own at CB. He has great hands from being a receiver and once he gets his footwork down, he could be dangerous. Flowers was tested multiple times deep and he was able to come through on all occasions.
The Autograph session today was the best turnout of players during an afternoon practice. Berry, Lewis, Carr, McGraw, Cassel, Arenas and multiple rookies all flooded the Autograph area. Overall I would say that the practice today was a great practice and I look forward to getting to the RB’s and seeing McClain tomorrow and also seeing Justin Houston on the field. In the words of Haley…The arrow is pointing up!